Evergreen Reporter

A Brooklyn resident, Rasheedul Mowla, has pleaded guilty in a federal court to attempting to provide material support to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization. The guilty plea was made before United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly in Brooklyn. Mowla, a U.S. citizen, faces a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The announcement of the guilty plea came from several authorities, including John J. Durham, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Sue J. Bai, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; Christopher G. Raia, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's New York Field Office; and Jessica S. Tisch, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department.

“Mowla sought to join a violent foreign terrorist organization that has conducted and inspired terrorist attacks worldwide, killing numerous innocent victims, including American citizens,” stated United States Attorney Durham. The arrest and intervention in Mowla’s plan were credited to the diligent efforts of law enforcement. Durham thanked the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for their work on the case.

FBI Assistant Director in Charge Raia highlighted Mowla's intentions, emphasizing, “Rasheedul Mowla made a concerted attempt to travel to Syria to join ISIS and expressed his willingness to actively support their extremist ideologies with physical violence.” Raia affirmed the FBI’s commitment to preventing any U.S. citizen from participating in terrorist activities.

NYPD Commissioner Tisch added, “Rasheedul Mowla wasn’t just planning to join ISIS—he was ready to kill and die for them. That kind of threat demands a swift response, and thanks to the work of the NYPD and our federal partners, it was stopped before anyone got hurt.”

Court documents revealed that Mowla traveled to Saudi Arabia in June 2017, under the pretense of celebrating an Islamic holiday. Once there, he attempted to travel to Syria to join ISIS but was intercepted before crossing into Syria and deported to the U.S. in August 2017.

Mowla had disclosed to authorities that he understood ISIS's nature as a terrorist organization and admitted his intentions to use weapons and sacrifice himself if necessary.

The prosecution of Mowla’s case is overseen by the Office’s National Security and Cybercrime Section, with Assistant United States Attorney Meredith A. Arfa and Trial Attorney John Cella from the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section handling the case.

Rasheedul Mowla is 28 years old and a resident of Brooklyn, New York.